ATINER`s Conference Paper Series MED2014-1302

Transkript

ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: LNG2014-1176
Athens Institute for Education and Research
ATINER
ATINER's Conference Paper Series
MED2014-1302
A Brave New World Music:
An Ethnographic Study on Music and
Cross-Cultural Communication
Murad Ozdemir
Researcher
Galatasaray University
Turkey
1
ATINER CONFERENCE PAPER SERIES No: MED2014-1302
An Introduction to
ATINER's Conference Paper Series
ATINER started to publish this conference papers series in 2012. It includes only the
papers submitted for publication after they were presented at one of the conferences
organized by our Institute every year. The papers published in the series have not been
refereed and are published as they were submitted by the author. The series serves two
purposes. First, we want to disseminate the information as fast as possible. Second, by
doing so, the authors can receive comments useful to revise their papers before they
are considered for publication in one of ATINER's books, following our standard
procedures of a blind review.
Dr. Gregory T. Papanikos
President
This paper should be cited as follows:
Ozdemir, M., (2014) "A Brave New World Music: An Ethnographic Study on
Music and Cross-Cultural Communication”, Athens: ATINER'S Conference
Paper Series, No: MED2014-1302.
8 Valaoritou Street, Kolonaki, 10671 Athens, Greece
Tel: + 30 210 3634210 Fax: + 30 210 3634209 Email: [email protected]
URL: www.atiner.gr
URL Conference Papers Series: www.atiner.gr/papers.htm
Printed in Athens, Greece by the Athens Institute for Education and Research. All
rights reserved. Reproduction is allowed for non-commercial purposes if the source is
fully acknowledged.
ISSN: 2241-2891
26/09/2014
A Brave New World Music:
An Ethnographic Study on Music and Cross-Cultural
Communication
Murad Ozdemir
Researcher
Galatasaray University
Turkey
Abstract
In a world where audio-visual media have become primary sites for
cultural exchange, music's presumed ability to communicate meaning
universally reveals itself in many circles. From a certain point of view, World
Music can be defined as an arena where different localities meet musically,
while even such an optimistic definition requires the acknowledgement of the
centrifugal forces and tendencies that determine musical communication at all
levels.
Academic interests on music and communication, in general, seem to
concentrate on the circulation of music with regard to economic/political
contexts determined by the related cultural spheres within musical circulation
occurs. Music, as a substance of research, causes many problems for social
sciences: One of these main problems is that; what is "communicated" with
music, comes to pass in nonverbal communication. Therefore, as a result, many
studies focus on more "verbal" qualities than "musical" ones.
This paper aims to explore some of the communicative contexts that
underlie a possible cultural understanding via musical performances by tracing
the circulation of an instrument. The case study presented in this paper is
derived from a ongoing ethnographic study based on a framework inspired by
Dell Hymes' ethnography of speaking: Together with a number of professional
musicians living/residing in Turkey, who musically produce locality in
international venues, we will be examining patterns and practices that
characterize multiculturalism in music.
Keywords: World Music, Anthropology of Audio-Visual Communication,
Material Culture
Acknowledgements: This paper is a product of a research funded by
Galatasaray University Research Projects Center. (Code: 14.300.002)
3
World Music in Private Worlds
We live in a multiplicity of worlds; serving as alternative technologies of
transportation, audiovisual media help us reach to many of them. To some
degree, we access to, and organize our private and professional worlds via
audiovisual media. We are surrounded by numerous worlds at our homes; we
feel the presence of many distinct worlds of religions, finance, and sports, etc.
When frustrated with world problems, for instance, we find joy in the world of
entertainment, either by watching a documentary revealing the hidden secrets
of underwater worlds, or by listening to some unknown beat coming from a
random online world music radio station. What is more, one may still feel 'at
home' while traveling through all these worlds.
As Gaston Bachelard suggests in The Production of Space, a house
signifies a body and a soul: Besides all the practical uses a house offers to its
habitants; from a psychoanalytic view, being the center of an individual's
universe; "A house is imagined as a concentrated being. It appeals to our
consciousness of centrality." (1994:17) This notion centrality also shows itself
in a specific mode of communication, according to Richard Chalfen; a mode
different from the mass modes including 'transient messages that have been
produced through public symbol systems for mass distribution to large,
heterogeneous anonymous audiences. Chalfen defines the home mode of
communication as a "pattern of interpersonal and small group communication
centered around the home" (1987:8). Both of these arguments focus on the
notions of 'unity', 'togetherness' by means of familial boundaries. However, as
modern individuals, even our private lives are marked with a constant state
border crossing. Being at home means being in a familiar environment in
where a particular mode of communication is shared between the members,
while on the other hand, as Marc Augé remarks in Non-Places; " people are
always, and never, at home" because of the overabundance of temporal and
spatial relations caused by audiovisual media. (1995: 109)
If the production/consumption of music was restricted with small group
communications like the home mode, as it was once, there would be no need
for a discussion on world music category; people would probably be talking
about "musics of the world" instead. ‘World Music' is only possible by the
alteration of temporal/spatial relations and social contexts that any music is
subject to: To put it straightforwardly, world music, as a category, is directly
linked to the commodification of cultural products.
The audiovisual media emerge as an interface between the outer worlds
and our 'sweet home's. In case of world music, it can be suggested that
audiovisual media create virtual neighborhoods, similar to Marie Loise Pratt's
contact zones; "social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each
other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power” (1991:34)
Therefore, since cultural contact involves an encounter between at least two
different cultures, world music acts like a contact zone in where cultural
interaction occurs; and it is a generalized vocabulary between the
4
psychological and the social, the private and the public, consequently, the
local and the global.
The popular discourse on music seems to support this view; music is
frequently considered as one of the few universal languages on the planet earth.
People start to talk about universal languages when they confront with forms of
nonverbal communication. Marked strongly with a strong metaphor of travel,
world music is produced locally (presumably), and marketed globally;
therefore, it resembles a generalized vocabulary for the global world.
According to a romanticized aesthetic would be that music, the language of
angels, which doesn't need words to be understood, is universally, 'vibrant' with
resonating whole through the planet, in perfect 'harmony'. From this point of
view, world music may be the perfect counterpart for globalization; as Timothy
Taylor (2007) puts it: " 'World music' as a category of music...is not simply the
soundtrack to globalization; it is a symptom of global capitalism".
Understanding Music
A researcher may take two positions regarding music and globalization:
(1) A top-down perspective in where marketing strategies dominate music
of the world, at all scales, and; (2) A bottom-up perspective which takes into
account of practitioners' creativities against the global market strategies.
The first can be considered, a pessimistic perspective regarding the culture
industry and the forces that manipulate music both at levels of production,
distribution and reception. As Peter J. Martin remarks in his book Music and
the Sociological Gaze, the 'style' of music matters only 'a little' for the critical
theorist when it comes to consumption, as long as the consumer buys
something: "first because in doing so we sustain the culture industry's
profitable production of commodities, and second any of these musical 'styles'
can form the basis of a symbolic discourse, which, far from illuminating the
fundamental economic and political relations of society, in fact obscures and
mystifies them." (2006:71) Therefore, it can be asserted that world music, as a
‘style’, in terms of music, does not mean anything; it becomes something only
in terms of global marketing strategies.
In case of world music, this 'symbolic discourse' as mentioned by Martin,
is similar to Johannes Fabian's argument that knowledge of the Other is also a
temporal act: According to Fabian;
"...the starting point for any attempt to understand evolutionary
temporalizing will be achieved with the secularization of Time. It
resulted in a conception which contains two elements of particular
importance to further developments in the nineteenth century: 1)
Time is immanent to, hence coextensive with, the world (or nature,
or the universe, d expending on the argument); 2) relationships
between parts of the world (in the widest sense of both natural and
sociological entities) can be understood as temporal relations.
5
Dispersal in space reflects directly, which is not to say simply or in
obvious ways, sequence in Time." (1983:12)
One of the results of this strategy of temporalizing is the 'ethnographic
present'; the practice of giving accounts of other cultures and the societies in
the present tense. From this point of view, world music, both at its
representation and perception stages, would be perfect example of
'ethnographic present', because musical performance, both temporally and
spatially, is always in 'present', even when it is recorded.
In his short essay, Musica Practica, Roland Barthes makes a distinction
between two musics, a muscular music which he defines with actual playing of
an instrument, and the sound music which is he defines to be effusive and
liquid - basically identified with the act of listening: "There are two musics (at
least so I have always thought): the music one listens to, the music one plays.
These two musics are two totally different arts, each with its own history, its
own sociology, its own aesthetics, its own erotic." 1977:149) The top-down
perspective seems to fit in Barthes' second music, sound music. It is about
consumption, listening habits and social contexts that lie behind the
consumption and categorization of music. Barthes' muscle music, however,
belongs to a different category.
As mentioned above, a bottom-up perspective takes into account of
practitioner's creativities against the culture industry. Against culture industry's
strategic forces, this perspective takes into consideration of musician’s tactic
forces; expressions, and possibilities. In Practice of Every Life, Michel
DeCerteau defines a tactic field by Foucault's notion of strategy. He uses his
famous metaphor of looking down from a city, and defines strategic force as
all-seeing power. The ordinary practitioners, however;
"...live “down below,” below the thresholds at which visibility begins.
They walk – an elementary form of this experience in the city; they are
walkers, Wandersmänner, whose bodies follow the thicks and thins of an urban
“text” they write without being able to read it. These practitioners make use of
spaces that cannot be seen; their knowledge of them is as blind as that of lovers
in each other’s arms. The paths that correspond in this intertwining,
unrecognized poems in which each body is an element signed by many others,
elude legibility. It is as though the practices organizing a bustling city were
characterized by their blindness. The networks of these moving, intersecting
writings compose a manifold story that has neither author nor spectator, shaped
out of fragments of trajectories and alterations of spaces: in relation to
representations, it remains daily and indefinitely other. (1988: 93)
Everyday life, for DeCerteau, is a tactic field in where individual creativity
occurs. Like DeCerteau's walkers who write urban texts without being able to
read it, musicians perform music without being able to hear it as a whole. To
put in other words, music of the world, (as opposed to World Music, which is
identified with the strategic power of the industry), belongs to a tactic field
characterized by fluidity, everyday inventions, negotiations and possibilities,
that cannot be grasped totally from any particular point of view.
6
This tactic force is one of the main reasons why musical instruments, even
as commodities, cannot be reduced to ideologies that shape them. Produced,
reproduced and consumed in many ways, music, as Taylor remarks; "... is not a
commodity all the time, or always in the same way, instead undergoing
constant periods of commodification and decommodification. (2007:282) The
most standardized rhythms or tonal structures, even when they are played with
commodified and mass-produced instruments, have the potential of
personal/artistic expression.
The Case of Multi-Oud: An Instrument Across Cultures
Writing about the new forms of cultural traffic which started to take place
in the 20th century, Arjun Appadurai mentions about a new global cultural
economy, which has to be seen " as a complex, overlapping, disjunctive order
that cannot any longer be understood in terms of existing center-periphery
models (even those that might account for multiple centers and
peripheries.)"(1996:32) Therefore, to examine the disjunctures between
culture, economy and politics, caused by the complexity of the current global
cultural flows, he proposes a materialistic approach to explore five dimensions
of these cultural flow, namely; ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes,
financescapes, and ideoscapes. Appadurai's approach is built on material
culture analysis, that is, the importance of sociability of objects in different
social contexts.
From a materialistic perspective as mentioned above, it can be asserted
that a particular instrument embodies:
1) A history of that particular instrument, with relation to the
repertoire and the styles related in temporal/spatial scales: Every
particular instrument holds a place in a family tree of musical
instruments; one may speak about an instrument's ancestors, as
well as its descendants.
2) A social life, related to the instrument's materiality and
objecthood: Musical instruments are physical objects that exist in
time and space; they are objects of cultural experiences, and they
also give shape to cultural experiences, as well. The social life of
an instrument is determined by the social contexts it fits into.
3) An intimate relation with the musician/s/ playing that particular
instrument: Making music involves the personal touch, musical
expressions, articulations, and therefore musician's personal
sound associated with the use of muscles. This intimacy comes
from the unique physical interaction between the musician and the
instrument. An example to this kind of communication is the
concept of embouchure, a term used for the personal positioning
of the facial muscles in order to play the wind instruments.
Another musical term, touch, is used for similar meanings for
7
stringed or percussive instruments. All these terms refer to a
physical contact, an interaction between the instrument and the
player, which also address a possibility regarding both the
musician's and the instrument's potentials.
Therefore, instruments, themselves can be considered as major characters
when it comes to cultural understanding, and music. Regarding the notion of
cultural traffic, as suggested by Appadurai, an instrument may well be the
direct linkage between the global and local, and what is communicated with
music can be traced by following the uses, potentials of an instrument. This
paper can be considered an attempt to understand some of the communicational
contexts that determine world music, by investigating the social life of a
particular instrument, Multioud. Therefore, in the following sections, we will
focus on this particular instrument, as well as a particular musician.
Godin is a Canadian company which manufactures stringed instruments
under several brands (Godin, Seagull, Simon&Patrick, Norman, LaPatrie and
Art&Lutherie).The company has official dealers in more than 50 countries and
its instruments are distributed globally, and played by numerous professional
and amateur musicians around the world. In the company's product line,
Godin Multioud (a modern version of an ancient instrument, oud) , comes after
Godin Glisstentar, an (11 stringed fretless acoustic stage guitar) The following
passage is taken from Godin Guitars' web page:
The Godin commitment to new guitar concepts is typified in the Glissentar
which is so much of a variation on the standard guitar that it isn't even a guitar
anymore and qualifies as a whole new instrument. The Glissentar project was
not born out of a marketing meeting (i.e.) "Man, I bet if we built an eleven
string fretless acoustic/electric we could sell a boatload of them." Instead the
Glissentar was conceived because of the intriguing musical possibilities it
promised and hearing some amazing Glissentar performances from musicians
like Michel Cusson, Fareed Haque, and Sylvain Luc (to name a few) that
deliver on that promise truly makes the exercise worthwhile.1
In Poetics of Music, stressing the relations between the musician and
his/her surrounding social setting, Igor Stravinsky compares music with
fashion: Stravinsky suggests that a generation's fashion imposes a particular
posture, a particular gesture upon people: "In a like manner the musical
apparel worn by an epoch leaves its stamp upon the language, and, so to
speak, upon the gestures of its music, as well as upon the composer's attitude
towards tonal materials."(2003:70) From this point of view, the invention of an
instrument cannot be regarded as a sole consequence of cultural climate only;
the new tonal possibilities offered by a particular instrument, might also be
considered as a social investment, which potentially demand to redefine social
relations. Potentially, every new instrument demands new tonal qualities, new
styles, new listeners as well as new communicational contexts. Therefore,
1
http://www.godinguitars.com/aboutus.htm
8
musical instruments, as objects, can be considered as main actors that give
shape to the communicative events in musical soundscapes.
Soon after Glissentar was available as a mass-produced instrument, Fatih
Ahıskalı, a Turkish multi instrumentalist specialized in oud and cümbüş, took
up glissentar to replace it for some of his stage performances. In 2008, a video
of Fatih's Glissentar performance was uploaded to YouTube, in where he
performed Tarrega's Arabe Cappricios , a piece originally composed for
classical guitar.
Image 1. Video Still: Fatih Ahıskalı Playing the Glissentar. (YouTube Video)
January 2008
Basically trained as a traditional musician at the Istanbul Technical
University's Turkish Music State Conservatory, Fatih Ahıskalı was not only a
virtuoso of ud and cümbüş, but also he mastered different repertoires with a
number of other stringed instruments, as well. In one of the interviews we
made for this study, he told that he not only played Paganini's Cappricio's in
the entrance exams for the conservatory, but he also graduated from there with
a dissertation on flamenco rhythms on guitar. By the time he graduated from
the conservatory, he was already in the major World Music and Pop Music
arenas with several bands, and orchestras. Mastering different world music
styles in a variety of musical settings is crucial for Fatih:
"To be a world -musician, you can either stick to your traditional
music, with your instrument or renovate your music after you master
the traditional repertoire: I believe the former is more
advantageous, it like playing in both offence and defense at the same
time in a football game." (Personal Interview, 2014)
As suggested earlier in this paper, musical soundscapes can be considered
as cultural contact zones; consequently, like all contact zones, soundscapes too,
are built on asymmetrical power relations. Fatih, as a world music musician,
clearly uses his mastery of different musical styles as a tactic force in the
cultural contact zones. In fact, as Joselyn Guibault remarks, world music
musicians, at will, function in and out of " the system controlled by dominant
cultures. Over the juxtaposition of elements from their traditional music, they
9
have adapted the musical language of the dominant traditions and play that
card commercially to enter the industrialized countries' networks" (2006:141)
Upon his outstanding performance on Glissentar, Fatih also participated in the
making of Godin MultiOud, and became an endorsed artist of Godin. In the
company's web page, MultiOud is presented as an ancient instrument 'now
made to be played in the modern age':
After developing the Godin A11 Glissentar fretless 11-string many years
ago, Robert Godin realized there were a large number of musicians gravitating
towards this style of fretless instrument. Most of these musicians were players
of an ancient middle-eastern, 11-string fretless instrument called the Oud. In
turn, these players have not seen any evolution to their instrument in over 1000
years and were constantly struggling with the issues of tuning and amplifying
their instrument of choice. With this in mind, while respecting old world
traditions, Robert Godin’s idea for the innovative Godin Multi- Oud was born.
(...)
The Godin MultiOud.... Respecting old world ideals with modern day
guitar innovation.1
Just before MultiOud was released, Fatih, as an endorsed artist of the
brand, appeared on another YouTube video, this time with Robert Godin, the
owner of the Godin Company.
Image 2. Video Still: Robert Godin and Fatih Ahıskalı; Demonstrating the
MultiOud. (YouTube Video) December 2010
This video is a demonstration of MultiOud; before Robert Godin starts to
introduce the technical specifications of this new instrument, he presents Fatih
Ahıskalı to the audience. Throughout the video, Fatih plays several
compositions of himself, which also appeared in his first solo-album, Akide
(2009, Irem Records, World Music Series Vol-I). In our personal interview,
speaking of his relation to MultiOud, Fatih made a remark on globalization of
local music and instruments:
"Some instruments have more chance in the world music arena:
Musicians like Vicento Amigo, or Al DiMeola have thousands of fans
1
http://www.godinguitars.com/hsheet11_multioud_x2eng.pdf
10
all around the world, who are also amateur guitar players. On the
other hand, I don't think a Chinese pipa player can find a ready
audience, like these musicians do... Similarly, a musician who plays
traditional kemençe apparently has less luck compared to a musician
who plays the clarinet, in terms of popularity of the instrument
among the amateur musicians." (Personal Interview, 2014)
From this point of view, it can be asserted that every particular
instrument's sound resonates within related musicscapes. Upgrades in the
instrument are not limited with the playability only, for these upgrades in a
straight line influence the soundscapes a musician performs within.
Considering a performing musician as a social actor; these alterations not only
have effects on the settings or the audiences, but on the music, itself. However,
it must be noted that these alterations are not one sided; individual musicians
performances are full of small but effective inventions. For example, to name a
few in our case, Fatih Ahıskalı uses a mızrap (a special pick for oud) when
playing the glissentar; he plays with an alternate tuning (DABEAD instead of
standart EADGBE tuning) which effects the hand positions, as well as the tonal
qualities. On the MultiOud, he preferably uses cümbüş strings -again with
alternate tunings- and on the stage, he mostly uses MultiOud for cümbüş parts,
instead of original oud partitions, which he plays with his traditional
instrument.
Image 3. Video Still: Fatih Ahıskalı, playing with a Guitar Pick.(Personal
Interview) March 2014
Conclusion
Forms of nonverbal communication typically cause some challenging
problems for social sciences. For instance, as David MacDougall states,
although anthropology was always interested with the visual, "its problem has
always been what to do with it." (1997:276) In many ways, the same is true for
music. Anthropology of communication aims to understand human
communication through answering four basic questions: " (1) What are the
communicative events, and their components in a community? (2) What are the
11
relationships among them? (3) What capabilities and states do they have, in
general, and particular events? (4) How do they work?" (1967: 25)
Dell Hymes' ethnographic approach is a decent starting point for the
cultural analysis of musicscapes, not only for its attention the nonverbal , but
also the consideration of social behavior in the social contexts it belongs in to.
The mnemonic of SPEAKING, (Setting, Participants, Ends, Key,
Instrumentalities, Norms and Genre) may well be applicable for the study of
soundscapes. However, the academic interest on world music, as earlier
suggested in this paper, seems to be concentrated on the sound music (as
Roland Barthes uses it), rather than the muscle music, which poses difficult
problems, most about legitimacy, at many different levels. Anthropology of
music, in this sense, may be considered, as an anthropology of border
situations.
In the introduction of Practice of Everyday Life, Michel DeCerteau states
one of the purposes of his work as "to bring to light the models of action
characteristic of users whose status as the dominated element in society (a
status that does not mean that they are either passive or docile) is concealed by
the euphemistic term 'consumers'. Everyday life invents itself by poaching in
countless ways on the property of others."(1986, XII) In his work, poaching
refers to the tactic power of the individual. Consequently, similar to Bourdieu's
notion of habitus, every cultural practice takes place in cultural fields, which
are characterized by the countless encounters, intersecting intentions, cultural
struggles, negotiations and inventions within.
It is important to remember that any piece of music potentially belongs to
artistic, industrial, personal worlds simultaneously. However, it also must be
noted that, above all, music is a form of communication first.
References
Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization,
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
Augé, Marc. 1995. Non Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity,
Trans. by John Howe, Verso
Bachelard, Gaston. 1994. The Poetics of Space: The Classic Look at How We
Experience Intimate Places, Trans. by. Maria Jolas, Beacon Press, Boston.
Barthes, Roland. 1977. Image Music Text, Essays selected and Translated by Stephen
Heath, Fontana Press,
Chalfen, Richard. 1987. Snapshot Versions of Life. Bowling Green State University
Popular Press.
De Certeau, Michel. 1988. The Practice of Everyday Life, Trans. by Steven Rendall,
University of California Press
Johannes Fabian. 1983. Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object,
New York, Columbia University Press.
Guibault, Jocelyne. 2006. "On Redefining the 'Local' through World Music" From
Ethnomusicology: A Contemporary Reader. Jenniffer Post (ed.), New York:
Routledge, . 137-146
12
Hymes, Dell. 1967. "The Anthropology of Communication", Human Communication
Theory, Frank Dance (ed.), New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
MacDougall, Dave. 1997. “The Visual in Anthropology”. Rethinking Visual
Anthropology Marcus, Banks; Murphy, Howard (Ed.) Yale University Press.
Martin, Peter, J. 2007. Music and the Sociological Gaze: Art World and Cultural
Production, (Music and Society, Manchester University Press.
Pratt, Marie, Loise . 1991. Arts of the Contact Zone. Profession, 91, 33-40
Stravinsky, Igor. 2003. Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons, Preface by
George Seferis, Trans. By Arthur Knodel & Ingolf Dahl, Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press
Taylor, Timothy D. 2007. "The Commodification of Music at he Dawn of the Era of
'Mechanical Music'", Ethnomusicology, Vol. 51. No.2 (Spring/Summer, 2007).
pp.281-305
Videos
mehmetde. (2008, January 17) Fatih Ahiskali - Capricho Arabe - Francisco Tarrega
(Video File) Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRNcXWa9rvo
Godin Guitars (2010, December 20) Godin MultiOud (Video File) Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4ER--3GSUM
13

ATINER`s Conference Paper Series MED2014-1302

Transkript

Benzer belgeler

Fatih Yılmaz

table of contents - International journal of Science Culture and Sport

Concrete in Istanbul - concretedesigncompetition

236 RAST MUSICOLOGY JOURNAL International Musicology

FACTSHEET - 16.09.2016 Solactive Turkish REITs Index

INCORPORATING TECHNOLOGY INTO THE MUSIC

MANNAS DİŞ DEPOSU

OIML R 107-1 (E), Edition 1997 - Organisation Internationale de